


What Matters

by Zarla



Category: Left 4 Dead
Genre: Banter, Female Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, Makeover, Pre-Canon, Sexual Harassment, Subtext, Teasing, reassurance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-27
Updated: 2010-06-27
Packaged: 2017-10-11 07:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zarla/pseuds/Zarla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First she has to dress up to go to some stupid party with people she hates, and then Hunter shows up to help her get ready. This really isn't Smoker's night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Matters

**Author's Note:**

> Original characters meant to be zombies, although this is set before they were infected. More information on them [here](http://www.ashido.com/huntersmoker/).

"Smoker? Hey Smoker, you home?"

She tapped on the glass a few more times, a bit louder than before, and waited. Hunter couldn't see her from her current vantage point outside, which meant that she must have been deeper inside her apartment doing something or other. In that case, Smoker probably hadn't heard her yet. Nothing that couldn't be solved with a bit more enthusiasm, and she raised her hand to tap again.

"The window's open," Smoker said, still somewhere out of sight, and she sounded more irritated than usual, although that could have been the glass muffling her voice. Hunter quickly slipped inside, shutting the window behind her before Smoker could nag her about it, and looked around. Still no sign of her, and a few sniffs of the air told her, aside from the omnipresent smell of cigarettes, that Smoker hadn't made dinner yet. Weird, she was usually fairly set in her routine.

"Where are you?" Hunter called out.

It took her a while to respond. "I'm in here." Preceded with what might have been a reluctant sigh.

Tracking her voice took her into Smoker's bedroom, where she was not, and then to the bathroom, where Smoker was leaning in front of her mirror, studying her reflection. Her hair was tied back into a surprisingly neat ponytail for her, and she was wearing a dress.

Had Smoker been looking at her, Hunter would have done an exaggerated double take for her benefit, but since the gesture would have gone unappreciated, Hunter just blinked instead. It wasn't even an old or shabby dress like the rest of Smoker's clothes... it almost looked nice, and probably would have looked nicer if it had been made for someone with Smoker's frame - something of an impossible thing to ask for as no one designed clothes with Smoker's frame in mind, something that she had complained about to her before. As it turned out, being well over six feet tall as a woman made finding clothes that fit more difficult than Hunter would have guessed.

The dress was black and hung loose around Smoker's front, and she'd added a somewhat clunky silver belt (which looked like it had been plucked right out of the '80s) to try and get it to hang right off her narrow hips, which didn't exactly work. The whole spectacle was totally bizarre. If she didn't know better, she would have sworn that Smoker was trying to look pretty, which was so unlike her that she wasn't sure she hadn't walked right into the Twilight Zone.

"What are you-" Hunter moved in closer and then noticed Smoker had something in her hand. "Are you putting on make-up?"

Smoker sighed and rolled her eyes. "Just when I thought tonight couldn't get any worse. And yes, for the record."

Hunter pulled a face at her in the mirror, where she was relatively sure Smoker would see her this time, and got another eye roll in response. _There we go._ "Why?"

"There's an office party tonight." The tone in her voice made it clear just how excited Smoker was about_ that_. "So that's where I'm going."

"Since when do you go to office parties? I thought you hated parties." Hunter turned around and hopped up to sit on the bathroom counter.

"Since I don't have a choice, that's when. And I do." Smoker frowned. "If I could stay home I would, believe me." She'd been leaning against the counter and staring at herself in the mirror with a mascara wand in hand for almost a minute now, without actually moving the wand near her eye. She finally leaned back a little with a sigh. "You don't know anything about make-up, do you?"

"Do I look like someone who wears a lot of make-up?" Hunter raised an eyebrow. "The guys would never let me hear the end of it."

"That's what I thought." Smoker sighed, capping the mascara and looking it over before setting it on the counter. "I have no idea how to do any of this." She stared at herself in the mirror, and she sighed again. She'd been glaring fairly steadily at her reflection, but for a moment now her expression softened. "Not that it'd make much of a difference anyway."

"Then just skip it." Hunter put her arms behind her head and leaned back. "Who cares? Where'd you even get it, anyway?"

"I've had some for years, I just don't use any of it. It doesn't seem complicated in theory, but..." Smoker pulled a small faded pink bag close to her, rifling through its contents without much enthusiasm. Hunter could catch glimpses of a lot of various tubes inside, but nothing she recognized. She really didn't know any more about this than Smoker did. Probably less, actually, since Smoker actually owned some of this stuff and Hunter didn't. "Most of it's gifts. Some of it's from an old ex, if you can believe that. Told me it 'might help'."

Hunter gave her a somewhat incredulous look. "Your boyfriend gave you make-up? Tch, that's subtle."

"One of many reasons why he's an ex-boyfriend," Smoker said, with a tinge of irritation at the memory. She pushed the battered bag off to one side, back into a dusty corner of her bathroom counter. Had that bag always been there? Maybe Hunter had just never noticed it before. Smoker looked back up at the mirror, stared for a few seconds before brushing some loose strands of hair behind her ears and sighing yet again.

"Do you think I should wear earrings?" She couldn't have sounded more disinterested if she tried.

"Are your ears pierced? I didn't know that." Hunter blinked at her, and Smoker gave her an unamused stare.

"Why else would I ask?"

"I've just never seen you wear any."

"I don't like them." Smoker looked back to the mirror. "They get caught in my hair."

Hunter looked at her a bit more carefully, and she could just make out a faint dark spot on her earlobe. That was the weirdest thing, she could have sworn that wasn't there before. Then again she didn't spend a lot of time studying Smoker's earlobes, of all things. "Yeah, and if you fall on 'em they can really tear up your ears."

Smoker turned to look at her again, an eyebrow raised. "What do you think happens at an office party?"

"I'm just saying! Things happen," Hunter said, and then she smiled at her. "You look really weird. Can I take a picture?"

"No." Smoker picked up a tube of lipstick and uncapped it, staring at it for a few moments as if deciding whether or not to actually go through with it. "This is embarrassing enough without your help."

"So why don't you just stay home? I can embarrass you just fine here without you wearing some fancy dress."

"Yeah, there's a novel idea I never considered." There was a hint of anger working into her voice. "It's one of those 'attendance isn't officially mandatory but really, it's mandatory' kind of things. I'm not getting out of this one."

"You should just quit. Your job sucks anyway." Hunter watched as Smoker turned away from her, probably to try and figure out how to apply the lipstick without Hunter staring at her the whole time. There was no way Hunter was going to miss this though, and she occasionally moved her head around her to try and get a glimpse of what she was doing. She looked so goofy when she was pursing her lips.

"In this economy? No thank you," Smoker mumbled, and then with some trepidation, turned to look back at the mirror. Without the help of her reflection, and with Hunter being so distracting, she'd ended up smearing red so broadly around her lips that she sort of resembled a clown. When Hunter burst out laughing at her she shoved her off the counter.

"Hahaha, no seriously, you look great!" Hunter clapped, and Smoker scowled at her, which didn't make her look any less ridiculous. If she wasn't sure Smoker would punch her lights out for it, she was almost tempted to reach out and honk her nose.

"I don't do this a lot, okay?" She sounded uncharacteristically exasperated with her, and she grabbed some tissues to try and wipe it off. "It's harder than it looks."

"How hard is it to put lipstick on? Even five year olds can do that." Hunter brushed herself off and sat back on the counter, still laughing, and Smoker held the lipstick out to her.

"You want to put some on then?"

"No way." Hunter held up her hands. "I don't do makeup, I told you."

"That's what I thought." Smoker set it down beside the sink, heaving a great sigh as she stared at herself in the mirror. There was still a faint tinge of red around her mouth that was not in the least what she was going for, or attractive. "You're a pain in the ass, you know that? Like this isn't bad enough."

"I think you're selling yourself short," Hunter said, grinning. "It could probably be a lot worse. I'd love to see what you could do with the eyeshadow."

Smoker turned and walked past her into her bedroom, still scowling. "You're really not helping."

"Since when have I ever been helpful?" Hunter said cheerily, and she caught the shoe that Smoker threw at her. "This is way more fun."

"Ugh." General irritation as she kept digging through her closet, and Hunter sat on her bed and waited. Sure enough... "I so don't want to go to this thing. Griffin's going to be there and he's just going to be a huge dick to me, and everyone else is going to get all weird about it, and ugh just shoot me now."

"Sounds like fun," Hunter said, setting the shoe on the floor. "Can I come?"

"No." A pause. "Although that'd make things a bit more interesting." Smoker finally emerged from her closet holding a dusty pair of red high-heeled shoes. She looked at Hunter, and the two of them stared at each other for a few moments.

Smoker gave her an unhappy look. "Should I?"

"I didn't even know you had those." Hunter stood up and walked over to her. The shoes certainly looked old, and they definitely didn't match her dress. "I thought all you had were army boots."

"I can walk in army boots, that's why." Turning the shoes over in her hands like they were about to attack her, and she had an unfamiliarly hesitant look on her face. That was kind of weirding Hunter out; Smoker was never hesitant about anything. "These are probably the nicest things I've got." Although there was something in the way that Smoker said 'nice' that made it sound like she didn't quite believe it. "I haven't worn 'em in years."

"Why do you even have 'em? It's not like you ever want to look nice."

"They're for stuff like this, but..." Smoker stared at them a little longer, then sighed and walked over to her bed. She pulled one foot up and began pulling a shoe on. At that point Hunter noticed the red marks along Smoker's legs; apparently shaving hadn't gone so well. "It might not be worth it if I can't walk in them."

"Man, how tall are you in heels? I bet your head would touch the ceiling."

"Har har." The shoes were on, and she sat there for a few seconds, staring at them like she could wish them into space. The shoes stayed, and Smoker stayed where she was, and Hunter eventually walked over to stand near her.

"Going to give it a shot?"

"I guess." Reluctantly, and Smoker slowly stood up. She wobbled for a few seconds, and Hunter held out her hands near her in case she fell. Smoker was so focused on keeping her balance that she didn't notice, and she took a hesitant step forward, her arms held out to try and keep herself steady.

"What's the weather like up there?"

"Shut up, I'm trying to concentrate." Another step forward, and her ankles wobbled. Hunter was watching her, and when her ankle rolled and she fell to one side, Hunter caught her easily before she hit the floor. Thankfully she'd never weighed very much.

"Oh yeah, you should totally wear these. They make you look really elegant."

"Fuck you."

"They'd definitely make it easier for someone to sweep you off your feet."

"I'll kill you, I swear."

Hunter smiled as she helped Smoker sit back on the bed, where she pulled off the shoes and frowned.

"Now what?" Smoker tossed the shoes to one side.

"You don't have a suit you could wear instead?"

Smoker stared at her.

"Just asking."

"Even if I did, it'd be a dumb thing to do." Smoker sighed. "I already get enough flack for 'looking mannish' at work as it is."

"You'd look way better in one."

"Doubtful, and mostly irrelevant." She sighed again. "It's this or nothing."

"Well, I can try and see if I can find some other shoes that'll work." Hunter leaned back on her hands, smiling at her.

"Like you know anything about looking decent." Smoker fell back against her bed, an arm over her eyes in apparent defeat. "But go ahead and look if you want."

Hunter had never been particularly concerned with fashion, with a few exceptions like what the most resilient fabric was when you collided with asphalt after falling twenty feet, so the real fun of helping Smoker try to put together an outfit was that she got to tease her about it every step of the way. By the time they'd finally decided on a pair of shoes that Smoker could walk in that didn't look completely terrible (boots, of course, but they were almost nice looking boots), Smoker was frazzled and irritated in a way that wasn't normal. Normally Hunter's needling wouldn't get to her, or she'd respond in kind, but apparently this situation was digging at her in a way that Hunter normally did not. She seemed almost genuinely upset about having to go to this party, and after a while Hunter felt bad enough about it that she backed off a little on the teasing and tried to do a bit more helping.

The boots didn't go with her dress, but nothing in her closet went with that dress since it wasn't like anything else she ever wore. Thankfully at least her necklace was simple enough to look complementary, and at Hunter's suggestion when Smoker expressed a desire to punch her fist through a wall, she sat down on a chair and let Hunter brush her hair and put it in a quick braid. It looked a little fancier than her ponytail, and the chances of it coming undone during the night were a little lower, and it also gave Smoker a chance to just sit and try and relax with a cigarette for a few seconds. It was only a brief respite, but it did keep Smoker from punching something, which was a good thing.

Eventually they did complete the ensemble, and when Smoker looked at her reflection, she sighed and frowned.

"I look stupid."

Hunter stood beside her, looking at her through the mirror. Smoker's dress didn't fit right; it highlighted her pale skin and the farmer's tan on her upper arms, which looked bony and scrawny without any fabric to hide behind, and did her narrow hips and small chest no favors. The large boots made her legs, which were dotted with a few Band-Aids and bruises, look spindly and frail. Her aborted attempts at make-up left her face somewhat blotchy, her thin lips weirdly tinted and her big nose shiny and the bags beneath her eyes and wrinkles around her mouth even more pronounced. With her hair pulled away from her face, it was easier to see the blemishes across her forehead, the tendons in her neck, her thick eyebrows.

"Yeah," Hunter said. "Pretty much." And Smoker didn't rise to that bait like she normally did, just staring at herself, and Hunter changed her tack a little. Maybe this wasn't the time. "On the plus side, it's just for tonight, right?"

"I guess."

"And you're already late, so that's even less time you have to spend there, right?" Hunter pulled her away from the mirror, since she was staring at herself a little too intently. "You can always leave early."

"I hope so. I don't want to spend any more time like this than I have to." She picked up her purse (the only purse, in fact, that they discovered she owned, which was large and brown and snake skin patterned, and she had no idea when or why she'd gotten it) and looked through it. Probably making sure her cigarettes were inside. "They better let me smoke there."

Smoker was already on edge; imagining her going the party without being able to sneak off for some time to herself seemed a dangerous prospect. Really, the whole thing didn't sound like a good idea. If Hunter thought there was any way she could talk her out of going, she'd try, but if they'd gotten this far there probably wasn't any turning back. Hunter didn't want her to go, but it was out of her hands, so she shrugged and tried to sound nonchalant. "Yeah. But I guess you should get going."

Smoker made a displeased sound at that, but she likewise didn't seem up for further argument. She fished her keys out of her purse (after first reaching for pockets her dress didn't have) and headed for the door.

"If you get bored, I have my cellphone. You can text me, okay?" Hunter said, and Smoker made another annoyed sound before she left and shut the door behind her.

Hunter waited for a little while, to see if she'd forgotten anything or if she'd change her mind and decide to come back and stay with her, then sat on the couch and turned on the TV. Nothing to do now but wait.

* * *

She'd zoned out in front of the television pretty heavily by the time Smoker got back, distracting herself during commercial breaks by wondering whether Smoker would look better in an actual dress that fit her or a suit. She couldn't quite decide.

She sat up when she heard the door open and slam shortly after. She looked over the edge of the couch in time to see Smoker throw her purse on the floor.

"How'd it go?" Despite the fact that she pretty much already knew from the look on her face, and Smoker turned to look at her as if she was surprised to see her there. It only lasted a moment before Smoker was scowling again.

"Oh, it was great." She walked into her bedroom, and Hunter got up off the couch to follow her. "Just swell. Exactly what I was hoping for, especially when Griffin got drunk and grabbed my ass." Smoker yanked out the tie holding her braid in place, burying her hands in her hair and ruffling it violently. Once it was again a tangled mess in front of her face, she sat down on the bed and began unbuckling her boots.

"Griffin was a dick, what a surprise." Hunter didn't bother to hide the bitterness in her voice. God, she hated that guy. Someday she was going to find him and make him sorry. "What'd you do?"

"What do you think I did?" Smoker snapped back at her, shaking with repressed rage as she reached behind her to try and unzip her dress. "I told him to back off and he called me a bitch, as usual, like I should've been _grateful_, and when I went to go tell Sparkles about it, I got the same thing I always get from her. 'Oh, are you sure that's what happened?'" Smoker stood up to try and get a better grip on the zipper, still shaking and speaking quickly. "'Are you sure you weren't leading him on?'"

She couldn't hang onto it in her current state, and she gave up with a furious huff, her fists clenched. "Fuckers."

Hunter wanted to do something, so she walked behind her and unzipped her dress for her. Her mood was darkening quickly. "What the hell, she really said that?"

"Of course she did, it's always the same thing with her. 'That doesn't sound like something he would do.' 'Are you sure you didn't send him the wrong signals?' 'Are you sure you interpreted him correctly?' Like there's a lot of subtlety to getting groped and called a bitch." She didn't turn around and acknowledge that Hunter had helped her at all, still furious and ranting and Hunter didn't interrupt her. Smoker kicked off her shoes at the wall, pulled the dress off of her like it was burning and threw it to the floor. "'You don't look half-bad when you're cleaned up', like that was supposed to be a goddamn compliment. He can get _fucked_."

Sometimes Hunter liked to hear about what she did at work, what random workplace drama had gotten under her skin, because sometimes she could find a spot of humor in it and tease Smoker out of dwelling on it. Then there were times like this, when bad things happened to her and there wasn't anything she could do, and she felt infuriatingly helpless. She'd joked about it before mostly, but now she wished she had forced Smoker to take her along after all because if she'd been there, she wouldn't have let anything like that happen, she was sure of it. Nobody would dare mess with Smoker if Hunter was there to back her up. Especially Griffin, and her epic grudge against him ran deep. Revenge fantasies against him were particularly fulfilling.

"I don't get that guy," Hunter said, eventually, since she didn't feel like making a joke about it and she always felt on uncertain ground when she had to be serious about something. "I thought he hated you."

Smoker pulled a shirt from her closet over her head, a large one with sleeves that came to her elbows and a hem that ended mid-thigh, and she almost growled in her throat before answering. "He does. They all do because I won't put up with their bullshit. I think the fact I don't put up with his drives him crazy. And hey, why not harass your coworker at an office party? It's not like HR actually listens to anything she tells them." She kicked her closet door shut with a loud slam as she pulled on a pair of sweatpants. "After all, why would anyone want to sexually harass _her_?"

She stood there with her back to her, shivering and breathing hard, her knuckles white, and Hunter watched her carefully, not quite sure what she should do. She felt just as angry but didn't know what to do with that.

Smoker eventually went to sit on the opposite side of the bed, with her back still to her, and she leaned her elbows forward on her knees.

"I just find it kind of hard to believe," Smoker said, in the high and irritating voice she used whenever she imitated Sparkles. "I mean, no offense but... look at you."

Silence, and Hunter turned and slowly crawled along the bed to her side, not saying anything. She sat beside her, staring at her, and Smoker stared at the floor. The constant shaking that tended to come with her anger had subsided, and now she just trembled in irregular pulses, like she was fighting something back.

"Like I don't know that," Smoker mumbled, burying a hand in her hair and when she turned to get the pack of cigarettes she kept by her nightstand, Hunter was holding it out to her.

A moment, and Smoker took the pack from her and pulled out a cigarette, looking off to one side. Hunter held out her lighter, and she took that from her as well without saying anything. She took a deep drag when the cigarette lit, breathed out a long sigh, and her shoulders slumped.

"Fuck them," she said under her breath. "I hate them all."

"You should quit."

"I can't, I already told you." Another deep drag.

"Then you should tell me where Griffin lives so I can kick his ass." And she said that like she was teasing, but if Smoker actually told her, she was going to do just that.

Smoker let out a dry, humorless laugh.

Silence between them, broken only by Smoker coughing every now and then, and she was tense and shaking. Emotions still running high and Hunter tried to think of what to say, how to fix it, what to do. She'd never been good at this kind of thing.

Saying she was pretty (as most people thought of it anyway) would have been a lie, and one they both knew was a lie. They knew what she looked like; nobody ever let them forget. It didn't matter to Hunter (she actually liked how Smoker looked just fine), but she was apparently in the minority. But she had to do something for her, find a way through it, above it, a way to defuse it, something. She had to make her feel better somehow.

Hunter leaned towards her, dipped her head down low so she could try and get Smoker to look at her instead of the floor, and their eyes met. Smoker looked old and tired, her hair now a scraggly mess over her shoulders and her eyes, her clothes adding the illusion of volume to her thin frame.

"They're all huge douchebags, you know?" Hunter said, and Smoker looked at her and faintly smiled. Getting her to smile wasn't easy, and when she did you could see the wrinkles near the corners of her eyes that had faded otherwise. Not a lot of people saw those. "You look better this way anyway."

"What, like a huge mess?" Smoker leaned over her to tap the ashes from her cigarette into the ashtray she kept by her bed. "Don't think you'll find a lot of people who'll agree with you."

"No, like you don't give a shit," Hunter said, and Smoker stopped and looked at her, eyebrows raised. Hunter just smiled back. "'Cause I know you don't."

Smoker stared at her a little longer, leaning back slowly. A moment, and she looked away and raised her cigarette back to her lips.

"Yeah," she said eventually, faintly, smoke curling up her face from her mouth. She didn't say anything further, again staring off into space.

That wasn't exactly the reaction she'd been hoping for. Hunter nudged her, getting her attention back from wherever it had gone, and Smoker looked back at her with a more normal expression of vague irritation. _That's better._

"And you know you don't give a shit either what anyone thinks. You didn't even want to go, right? You don't care. They want to be huge douchebags then fine, it doesn't matter to you, and it doesn't matter to me either 'cause they're not here, are they? It's just you and me, not giving a shit about anything else. And that's all that matters, you 'n me. What we think is what's important, and fuck everyone else."

Smoker was looking at her, like she was watching her for something, and again there was a hint of a faint smile. "You really love the whole 'us against the world' thing, don't you."

"They got it coming." Hunter nudged her again, and Smoker moved with it and her faint smile hadn't faded yet, all good signs.

"You watch too many movies," Smoker said.

"Speaking of which, I was watching something before you came home that I think you might like."

"Meaning something I might hate."

"It's got zombies in it."

"Ugh." Smoker rolled her eyes.

Hunter stood up in front of Smoker, and Smoker looked up at her for once instead of looking down. She wasn't shaking anymore, cigarette between her thin stained fingers held steady, sitting there with messy hair and old loose clothes and she looked completely comfortable, natural.

_This is who I am,_ was always the impression Hunter got from her when she looked like this. _And if you don't like it, go fuck yourself._

She'd always liked that about her.

"Besides, what you're wearing now looks way better than that dress did." Hunter grabbed her free wrist and pulled Smoker up, who didn't resist. She pulled her into the living room, and Smoker followed along behind her. "It really looked terrible on you."

"You're such a flatterer."

"It's true though, you look better when you don't give a shit."

"That doesn't make any sense," Smoker said, sitting down on the couch and slouching against the arm rest. "And I can't believe I know you well enough to know you mean that. Whatever it means."

"_You_ don't make any sense."

"That's more like it."

Hunter sat down right beside her, wanting to be as close to her as possible, and Smoker moved her arm to the back of the couch so Hunter could curl up against her side, as usual. It wasn't until after she'd done it, when they'd settled into their usual position, that it occurred to Hunter that given what had happened that night, maybe Smoker wouldn't want to be touched, or at least would want to be asked.

Hunter looked up to get a look at her face, to see if maybe she had made a mistake or something, but Smoker didn't look bothered by her presence at all. She was staring at the television with her eyes half-closed, cigarette in her mouth, her arm along the back of the couch. Like always.

The same kind of easygoing confidence that she was used to. Comfortable with the situation. Smoker was comfortable with her, with her doing this. Trusted her.

There was a kind of warm feeling that came with that thought, and Hunter leaned her head against Smoker's chest, slid an arm around her and squeezed her a little. She wanted to return that feeling, or at least share it somewhat, and she guessed that that was responsible for her decision to say something a bit more frankly than she normally would have.

"I like you just the way you are."

She couldn't see Smoker's face from here, but she felt her take in a deep breath, and then felt her arm shift from the back of the couch to around her shoulders.

"You've always had terrible taste," Smoker said, and she could hear the smile in her voice.

"Yeah, why else would I be friends with you?" Hunter said in return, and felt Smoker squeeze her shoulder.

"Beats me," Smoker said, her voice lowering and she coughed for a few seconds. "Not like I got people beatin' down the door to be where you are."

Not how Smoker would normally respond to that, and Hunter frowned a little. She still wasn't feeling like herself, she could tell. Hunter wanted to make her feel better, to share that feeling she got when she knew that Smoker trusted her, was comfortable with her and only her, could be herself with her.

"It's their loss, you know?" She tightened her grip on her. "They don't know what they're missing."

"They're not missing much," Smoker said, softly, maybe a little confused. Probably at Hunter's candor.

"They're missing everything." Hunter rubbed her head against her for a moment, and Smoker moved her hand from her shoulder to her head, ruffling Hunter's hair a little.

"Missing you being a big dumb sap maybe, I guess that is pretty rare."

"I'm not being a sap, I'm just saying." Hunter closed her eyes as Smoker ran her fingers through her hair. "Someday I'm going to punch Griffin right in his stupid mouth. He'll never see it coming."

"There we go, that's the little monster I know." Smoker laughed softly. "If it wouldn't get me fired I'd do the same thing."

"More like you'd have already done it like years ago."

"Mmm, I wish." She sighed and leaned back a little, settling more comfortably, and Hunter stayed with her. She was still toying idly with Hunter's hair, and Hunter kept her eyes closed. She always liked how this felt, although she'd never told Smoker that. She'd probably just tease her for it. "I wish."

Their conversation dwindled off after that, the television once again occupying their attention, and as time went on, Smoker yawned and told Hunter to move so she could lie down. After a little bit of awkward shifting, she was on her back and staring at the television, and Hunter was lying mostly on top of her, her head on her chest. She could hear her breathing, sometimes thick and a bit strained, her lungs not in the best of shape, and her heart beating, and it was easy to forget that there was anything or anyone else in the entire world.

"You sure you don't got anywhere else you need to be?" Smoker said eventually, so quietly that Hunter wasn't sure that she'd heard her at first.

"Making your arm fall asleep is at the top of my list," Hunter said, her eyes closed. She felt drowsy and warm, and she wasn't sure she'd said that clearly.

"What?" That confirmed it, and Hunter yawned.

"You're at the top of my list." That was close enough, wasn't it?

"What, of people you want to annoy to death?"

"Yeah." Hunter smiled.

"You're doing a good job." Smoker stretched a little under her. "My arm is falling asleep."

"Mission accomplished."

"Then move already."

"Nah." And Smoker didn't even try to get her to move, or even protest. She just took a deep breath, and Hunter rose and fell with it.

"You really think that dress looked terrible?" Smoker said, eventually.

"Really terrible."

A few moments of silence. "People kept telling me, they kept saying, 'you look much nicer this way', 'why don't you dress like this more often', 'why don't you wear things like this to work?', 'you look better when you take care of yourself', 'if you just put in a little more effort, maybe you wouldn't look so'..." Smoker made a frustrated sound. "I just... I hate hearing shit like that."

"Duh, 'cause they're wrong." Hunter lifted her head up so she could look Smoker in the eye. There was something there other than anger, something that went deeper than that, what might have been the edges of real hurt. She'd wanted to keep Smoker away from dwelling on her appearance, tried to avoid it but now she realized that she'd no doubt been dwelling on it all night, just because she had to go to some dumb party she didn't even want to go to. It wasn't fair. "You look better like this."

"Like what?"

"Like yourself. You know." Hunter tried to think of the word. "Like you want."

She didn't look convinced, and if she didn't know her better, she'd say that Smoker almost looked like she was sad. Which was ridiculous, and the thought of that almost made Hunter angry. "Like a mess."

Hunter reached out a hand and touched her face softly. "Like you."

Smoker stared at her, her eyes widening a little, and Hunter didn't look away. She brushed some hair away from her forehead.

"I know you pretty good, I think," Hunter started, and Smoker tilted her head just slightly.

"Do you now?"

Hunter continued like she hadn't spoken. "And I know you wouldn't let some stupid douchebags like that get to you. They obviously don't know shit about what looks good if they thought you looked nice in that dress. They're fucking morons, big dumb assholes. I know you don't listen to assholes."

"So where would that leave you?" Smoker said, although it wasn't with much heart, and raised an eyebrow. She could almost see the beginnings of a smile. That was more like it.

"You don't let people like that get to you," Hunter stated, a firm fact, and there, Smoker was smiling now. It was a faint one, but it was there. "They're not worth it. You know whose opinion really matters?"

Smoker kept her eyebrow raised, not saying anything. Hunter reached out and pressed a fingertip to the center of Smoker's forehead (had the situation been different, she might have mocked her for flinching when she touched her as she did, but Hunter had something more important to talk about). A moment to make sure the gesture had the appropriate weight, and then she turned and touched her finger to her own forehead.

"You know it's true," Hunter said, and Smoker shook her head at her a little, fondly in a way that was too rare. "And you know what my opinion is?"

"What?" Had things been different, Smoker probably would have said that she didn't care about Hunter's opinion at all, or that it was worthless, or some other sarcastic comment or another. And yet, now Smoker willingly played along and just answered the question straight out. If it helped improve her mood, if this was Smoker's way of reaching out and taking Hunter's outstretched hand, then Hunter wasn't going to complain.

"I like you just the way you are." And Smoker's expression softened.

"Well, you're probably the only one." She was smiling, but there was still a faint wounded edge to that that Hunter didn't like.

"Nuh uh." Hunter shook her head. "I'm not the only one, 'cause I know you like _yourself_ this way."

"What-"

"Like this. You like the clothes you wear, the boots you got, having your hair all in your face. I _know_ you like flannel." Hunter pointed at her. "No one would own that much unless they really liked it. Wearin' that stuff makes you happy, and you wear it 'cause it makes you happy, and that's you. This is you. You like yourself the way you are."

"Didn't think being comfortable was a fashion statement."

"It's comfortable 'cause it's _you_, you moron. That dress? Not comfortable, not you. It's not rocket science." Hunter reached down between them and picked up Smoker's necklace, rolling it between her fingers. "So that's two people right there who think you're awesome. And it's the only two people that really matter, like I said." She grinned victoriously at Smoker. "So fuck everyone else."

Smoker stared at her a few moments more, and she smiled back with more strength, her normal confidence slowly returning. "Fuck everyone else."

"That's right. And don't forget it." Hunter turned and rested her head so she had her ear against Smoker's chest again. She sighed, and felt Smoker do the same a little afterwards. "Just you 'n me. That's all that matters." A pause. "Dude, we should make 'fuck everyone else' our official motto."

And Smoker laughed. Really laughed, not sarcastic laughed, although it wasn't loud or long or anything. Just quiet little raspy huffs of air, and she almost never did that, and Hunter squeezed her a little and laughed with her, thinking about how Smoker trusted her enough to have her here, trusted her enough to let Hunter pull her out of her funk, that she mattered to her more than anyone else, and she loved the warm feeling that came with that. Whatever it was called.

And when Smoker laughed, when she ruffled her hair and looked at her with those wrinkles near the corners of her eyes, smiling, when she held her in her arms, she had to be feeling that warm feeling too. She was sure of it.

That was all that mattered.

Fuck everyone else.


End file.
